022 - Hundred Years' War of the Evil Dragons (Part 2)

Olga Marie Animusphere

The last couple of weeks have been particularly trying for Olga, but not for the reasons one might assume. As much as Kyriel– Mashu seems convinced that she's overworking herself to death, the truth is that her workload hasn't really changed all that much. Organizing resources and optimizing efforts is something she's familiar with, something she's good at. The right mindset to deal with high volumes of data and doing so as quickly and efficiently as possible comes with being an Animusphere. The stars in the sky are numerous indeed, and it's an astrologer's job to take them all into consideration.

No, the problem isn't so much what she's been doing, but how she's been doing it. The ill-tempered, snappy act served her well when it came to keep her subordinates at arm's length and that used to be good enough. That is, back when she was a scared little girl trying to pretend she knew what she was doing and didn't want anyone taking too close a look and noticing how big the shoes she was trying to fit really were.

It's an act that she wants to leave behind. It's an act that she probably should've left behind a long time ago. But she didn't really have a reason to change back then, did she? With the safety net that traitor's reassuring presence represented and no real role model for her to chase after, she could afford to remain as she was and… settle. That's no longer the case, she no longer has a safety net to coddle her away from personal growth, she has someone to chase after.

(Tohsaka-sensei wouldn't rule Chaldea like a petty tyrant, she would be self-assured and confident in her abilities. There would be no need for her to hide her incompetence behind a scary façade.)

Her conversations with Kyriel— Mashu have helped a lot there, showing her undeniable proof that she can afford to ease her act without losing all respect from her subordinates.

And now, every time she snaps at a subordinate, every time they jump in fear upon noticing her presence and every time a kind word gets stuck on her throat and refuses to come out, it burns like a personal failure. But… Some things take time, the sort of change she's aiming for is scary on its own and bad habits die hard. Later, she tells herself every time she fails to hold herself to her new standards, when they're not so busy anymore.

It's just an excuse and she knows it, but it's a good excuse. So she continues to push the change back, and she continues to hate herself for it.

"Hey there, everyone!" A cheerful voice draws her attention back to the present, heralding the arrival of Mashu alongside a certain redhead. "I heard we have a meeting?"

… At the very least Haku refuses to get intimidated by Olga's attitude. That's both a breath of fresh air and a source of new headaches all on its own. Her special position as the Last Master of Chaldea means nobody will bat an eyelash at her ignoring protocol, so it won't be a problem for discipline. But Olga has a feeling that, had things been different, it wouldn't have deterred the girl's informality at all.

"Fujimaru, you are…" Olga trails off, raising her left arm to check her wristwatch before arching an eyebrow towards Chaldea's Last Master. "On time. Will wonders ever cease?"

"Now, that's mean, Lady Director!" The girl gasps in an overly exaggerated fashion, taking both hands to her heart. "I'm always on time when I don't get sidetracked!"

"Which is never." Olga shoots back without hesitation, rolling her eyes at the blatant antics.

"I always have a good reason!" Haku protests without missing a beat.

"I seem to remember the first time was because you had the gall to oversleep." Olga points out.

"I was exhausted from the previous day's training." Haku crosses her arms without the slightest hint of shame. "Could've happened to anyone."

"Then I send Kyrielight to pick you up for the next meeting so it wouldn't happen again." Olga continues. "And you somehow ended up having to escort her to Medical instead."

"She was feeling a bit anemic." Haku explains as if she was talking about the weather, reaching towards Mashu to wrap an arm around her waist and pull the Pseudo-Servant closer. "I couldn't just leave my cute little Kouhai alone like that, it wouldn't have been responsible."

"Right…" Olga drawls out slowly while eyeing the blushing girl that's trying to make herself as small as possible against Haku's side. Mashu has been surprisingly cagey about whatever happened that time, but Olga has some good guesses. "Let's not forget the time you were queuing up in the kitchens for their special chocolate offer."

"Ah, that doesn't count! It was a limited event to make use of all the cocoa we got from that South-American Pseudo-Singularity!" For once, Haku's indignation sounds genuine… ish. She's still having way more fun than she should with the situation she's in. "I couldn't miss it! I brought enough to share! The Lady Director loved that chocolate!"

That had been a mighty fine chocolate, Olga admits within the privacy of her own mind. The kitchen staff had outdone themselves that day. And… she's allowed herself to get suckered into bantering again. It's happening more and more often as time passes and they get to know each other. Olga isn't sure if that's a sign of herself slowly easing into the interaction or simply Haku getting better at coaxing her, but she can't really bring herself to begrudge it.

Of course, time and place are to be minded and a priority meeting with the (closest thing to) Chaldea Heads is definitely neither. As much as Olga wants to change her personal image, allowing it to drop willy-nilly would be far worse than simply letting things continue as they are.

… Or maybe it wouldn't? Tohsaka-san certainly was confident enough to maintain a casual attitude in her everyday interactions as long as discipline was kept when it really mattered. Maybe—

"Ah, It's good to see the Lady Director continues to get along with Haku-kun." Roman comment drags Olga's thoughts back to the present once again, there's a hint of fondness in his voice that (makes her heart throb painfully) doesn't sit well with her. "As the Head Doctor, I can only approve of her finally getting some friends."

"That's quite enough, Roman." She cuts him off, doing her best to keep her cheeks from reddening in (self-consciousness) indignation.

"Sorry."

There's an awkward moment of silence while Haku takes a seat at the table with Mashu standing right behind her Master. At first, Olga tried to get her (friend) to take a seat too, but Mashu always refused, going as far as to ignore an empty chair right in front of her to remain standing.

Olga appreciates the distraction, taking the chance to recompose herself before drawing attention back to herself with a soft cough.

"A– Anyway! We're here to discuss the singularity we have finally managed to lock on and how things will develop from now on." She summarizes. "This new singularity is of a scale that dwarfs Singularity F by an order of magnitude. For what we've managed to learn about the seven hiding underneath Singularity F, most if not all of them do. Caster?"

"It's finally Vici-chan's turn! Hi, hi!" The one person who regularly gets away with being less formal than Haku takes the spotlight. "Indeed! They are considerably bigger, encompassing full countries at the least. Well, there's one exception, but even that one has some extenuating circumstances that make it—"

As the Servant's speech gains impetus, numerous screens containing graphics and charts slowly start filling the space behind her and Olga knows that, unless she does something now, things will devolve into a full-fledged lecture about the Singularities. Unfortunately for what she's sure would be a very educational session, they simply don't have time for that at the moment.

"Worrisome, but ultimately irrelevant, it doesn't change what we have to do." Olga cuts the Servant off. "There's no need to go into tangents at this point in time, Caster. Let's focus on the matter at hand."

"Fine, constrain my genius, see how well that works out!" The Renaissance Woman crosses her arms under her breasts and looks away with a pout. With a wave of her hand, most of the screens behind her vanish away, leaving a single one displaying an uneven contour with a red dot near the center. "The locked Singularity originates from Orleans, France, and affects an area roughly equivalent to the modern boundaries of the country. The year is 1431."

"The middle of the Hundred Years War, huh." Roman rubs his chin in thought. "However, there should be a brief pause in the fighting around this time period."

"That's a fair point…" Haku raises her hand, as if she was calling for the teacher's attention in a classroom. "But you are forgetting something, Doctor."

"Eh?" The doctor blinks in confusion, clearly out of his field of expertise. Then again, he's an expert in medicine, not human history. "I am?"

"There must be a reason the Singularity happened at this time in particular." Their last master points out. "And something very important happened in France that year."

"Indeed!" Da Vinci smiles widely and that's all it takes for Olga to get a bad feeling about the whole thing. "A genius likes to show off, but having an audience that doesn't need everything spelled out for them is nice too!"

"That's the year Jeanne D'Arc was captured by her enemies and burned at the stake in Rouen."

"A singularity centered around the death of the Patron Saint of France. One of the most well-known figures in the whole world." The doctor concludes with a sigh. "Welp, I can see why Lev would target it if he's going after the Foundations of Humanity."

Olga's teeth clench hard enough that she feels them crack under the pressure, but she holds back the urge to lash out. She can't get emotional every time the traitor is brought up, she can't have him living in her head rent-free like that, it'd be the same as letting him win.

And she'd rather gargle rusty chainsaws than accept that.

"That's a reasonable assumption, but let's not get ahead of ourselves." She says evenly instead of flipping the table like she actually wants to. "We should get some boots on the ground and get our facts straight."

Trying to play armchair detective with insufficient intel and blind guesses is nice and all, but it will all be pointless if it turns out France went up in cursed flames like Fuyuki or some other similar nonsense.

Mashu Kyrielight

Mashu feels somewhat giddy as she takes her place in her coffin, like a child trying a theme park ride for the first time. This won't be the first time she rayshifts properly, not when she's spent the last two weeks visiting Pseudo-Singularities, but this will be the first time she properly dives into a proper Singularity.

That still matters, right? She's not weird for being nervous, right?

She would've liked to hold Senpai's hand during the process, maybe that'd calm her heart down. (Or maybe it'd make it beat faster.)

Not now, brain! Stop being dirty! Shut up!

"Unsummon program start." The mechanical voice of the automatic system announces as the tunable glass of the coffin walls goes from see-through to opaque. "Beginning Spiritron conversion…"

The feeling of her own body turning into Spiritron Particles is always a bizarre experience, not helped in the slightest by the awareness that her actual body is intact and perfectly safe and the reason she's feeling like this is due to her awareness being peeled away in preparation to be projected into a different time-line.

"Rayshift beginning in 3, 2, 1…"

The sensation that follows is impossible to describe, for the human senses are not prepared to perceive para-temporal displacement and the feedback they return is utterly incomprehensible. But if Mashu had to compare it with anything… Actually, she has no idea what to compare it to. It's just that hard to describe.

"Operation cleared. Beginning Grand Order."

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